"I came to Turkey three months ago, because I was wounded fighting in Syria," says Hamza, sitting outside a small bungalow near the Turkish border town of Reyhanlı. He lifts his T-shirt to reveal a long scar across his chest and stomach. "I am here to rest. As soon as I am better, I will go back to Syria to fight again." Hamza, 38, says he has been fighting with Jabhat al-Nusra all over Syria, in Aleppo, Homs, and Palmyra. "My family is still there. We speak every day – no, every hour, every five minutes! I miss them a lot."

He shares the bungalow with three other men, all of them involved with the armed Syrian opposition. "The Turkish owner, God bless him, lets us stay here for free. When business is going well, we give him some money, but he says that he wants to help us."

He adds that tension between Syrians and Turks soared after two car bombs killed 53 in Reyhanlı in May. "We all stayed in our houses for a few hours. Turks were very angry, they smashed up cars with Syrian number plates. But now everything is fine again, we feel at ease here."

A hunting rifle leans against the makeshift counter. "Sometimes we hunt small birds. We often go fishing," Hamza says. "It passes the time."

In Syria, he worked as a chef in a five-star hotel in Palmyra. "I love cooking, especially Italian food. Sometimes I cook for my friends here." He laughs. "They are grateful to have me!"